Orion International Film Festival 2025

11 creatively fearless short films

The 2025 ORION International Film Festival will once again bring a world of cinema to the Granite Belt, with a curated screening event at the Stanthorpe Regional Art Gallery.

This selection is rated for 15+

Nibbles provided, bar available

Dedicated to discovering original, thought-provoking films that push the boundaries of storytelling, ORION IFF continues to celebrate filmmaking that is bold, diverse, and creatively fearless. This year’s program will be presented in two one-hour sessions, with time for drinks and nibbles before and midway through, creating a relaxed and engaging evening of film and conversation.

The 2025 line-up showcases a compelling mix of Australian and international short films, with a special emphasis on ethnographic works exploring culture and identity. The curation will also feature striking manual animations and experimental AI films that challenge traditional visual narratives and expand the cinematic form.

Founded in Australia, ORION IFF holds screening events in both the picturesque Granite Belt Region of Southern Queensland and Berlin, Germany’s political and cultural capital. Official selections and award winners are chosen by an industry panel and recognised for their excellence across six key areas: Creative Merit, Production Values, Cinematography, Performances, Editing, and Sound Design.

ORION International Film Festival is a celebration of filmmaking — honouring artistry, creativity, and diversity — and continues to foster a global platform for cinematic expression and cultural exchange.

PROGRAM

Bird Drone

Directed by Radheya Jang Jegatheva
Animation
Australia, United Kingdom
8:55
A heartfelt story of unrequited love explored through a lonely seagull struggling to accept that his newfound object of affection is a human-operated drone with a limited battery life.

Aren’t We Havin’ A Good Time

Directed by Derry Shillitto
Narrative Film
United Kingdom
19:09
Peter (Nicholas Lumley — Paddington 2, Lady Macbeth), once a beloved singer and stand-up entertainer of the ’70s and ’80s, now resides in a Nottingham care home with Alzheimer’s dementia. His grandson Kezz (Kieran Hardcastle — This Is England, Bohemian Rhapsody) visits regularly, determined to bridge the distance the illness has created.
Their relationship becomes a touching exploration of memory, love, and the enduring impact of music — a reminder that some bonds remain even when memories fade.

Thirteen

Directed by Viktoria Windhab
Narrative Film
Austria
20:00
Thomas, a successful tax associate, receives an unexpected phone call while driving home — triggering a chain of events that threatens to dismantle his carefully constructed life.

Trinket

Directed by Alisha Doherty Hough
Animation
Australia
2:23
A traveller explores apocalyptic Australia upon the back of an ancient huntsman spider and encounters the strange beings that have grown in humanity’s absence.

Memories of Occupation

Directed by Dimitris Argyriou
Documentary
Greece
9:30
In April 1944, during the Nazi occupation of Greece, the village of Pyrgoi became the site of one of the country’s deadliest massacres. More than 300 civilians — men, women, children, and the elderly — were executed by German troops and local collaborators, and the village was burned to the ground.
This documentary gives voice to survivors and the families of those lost. Through personal testimonies and present-day imagery, it reflects on trauma, silence, and the enduring shadow of history.

B.I.

Directed by Stuart Morley
Narrative Short
Australia
15:00
A businessman faces an unexpected rival: an artificial intelligence that begins to outsmart him at every turn.

Test Strike

Directed by Pavlo Karusenko
Artificial Intelligence Film
Kazakhstan
4:43
A stylised AI-created imagining of the samurai custom “tsujigiri” (辻斬り) — testing a new sword on an unsuspecting passerby. A short exploration of honour, violence, and morality in medieval Japan.

Home of Salmon

Directed by Notin Nuoding Wang
Narrative Film
Australia
13:12
Zhou Zhou, a young Chinese man born and raised in Australia, feels increasingly torn between the two cultures shaping his identity. When a clash with his father brings long-buried tensions to the surface, he is forced to confront what — and where — home really is.

A Completely Sad Miracle

Directed by Henry Jack Toll
Experimental Film
United States
6:04
A deranged artist in the present day begins a bizarre correspondence with John Howland, a pilgrim who fell off the Mayflower during his voyage to America 400 years ago.

INTERMISSION

Piblokto

Directed by Anastasia Shubina & Timofey Glinin
Ethnographic Documentary
United States
37:49
On the Arctic coast of Chukotka lives a community largely cut off from the outside world. Their existence revolves around hunting walruses and whales and protecting their villages from bears roaming in from the tundra. Here, life and death are tightly interwoven: marine animals sustain the people; their remains feed Arctic foxes on fur farms; and human cemeteries draw hungry bears.
The film abandons the familiar rhythms of cinema, instead embracing the structure of a shamanic ritual — a meaning-forming experience at the heart of northern Indigenous culture.

Maasai Eunoto

Directed by Kire Godel
Ethnographic Documentary
Kenya
33:40
Through the voices of warriors and elders during their emotional rite of passage in 2022, Maasai Eunoto documents the vanishing transition from warrior to elder, revealing the hidden past and uncertain future of one of Africa’s most significant cultural ceremonies.
The Eunoto ceremony is on UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in need of urgent safeguarding, as the Maasai fight to keep their traditions alive today.